My research has been focused on Roman civilization in all its aspects. I began with work on the Roman army, in particular its role as the model for bureaucratic systems in the later Empire. This led to my first book and continues to be an interest. Later I turned to the interaction between politics and literature, with particular focus on the development of a distinctive ideology by the Roman ruling class. The great model here is the work of Ranuccio Bianchi Baninelli. My current project is an examination of Roman studies from Petrarch to Gibbon. Roman law has been a crucial factor connecting this field with the development of the modern state.